ETUDE
What does "ETUDE" mean?
A short musical piece designed to develop a particular technical skill.
Meanings
- A composition built to train one aspect of a player's technique, sometimes also a concert showpiece. She practiced a Chopin etude until the runs were effortless. technical
- A study or preparatory work in any art, such as a painter's sketch. The gallery hung his early etudes beside the finished canvas. formal
Did you know?
- An etude literally means a 'study' - a drill - yet Chopin's 24 etudes are so beautiful they're played in concert halls, proving an exercise can become art.
Word origin
Borrowed from French 'etude', meaning 'study', from Old French 'estudie', from Latin 'studium' (zeal, application, study).
Remember it
ETUDE is French for 'study' - so a piano etude is homework you can clap for.
A little poem
Five notes, ten thousand times.
Somewhere in the repetition
the drill forgets it was a drill.
tercet
Wordplay
- Why did the pianist call her scales practice a masterpiece? She'd learned that 'etude' just means 'study' - and Chopin made homework worth a standing ovation.
What it teaches
Master the exercise deeply enough and it stops being practice - the etude becomes the performance.
Quick facts
What does ETUDE mean?
A short musical piece designed to develop a particular technical skill.
Is ETUDE a valid word?
Yes — ETUDE is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is ETUDE?
ETUDE has 5 letters and 2 syllables.
Where does ETUDE come from?
Borrowed from French 'etude', meaning 'study', from Old French 'estudie', from Latin 'studium' (zeal, application, study).
What can ETUDE teach us?
Master the exercise deeply enough and it stops being practice - the etude becomes the performance.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.